C.J. Milbrandt's Blog, page 15

If-Then Reads

One good book can lead to another! You like a smart art theft? How about a jewel heist!

What’s going on tonight?

Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ

#amreading Variously

Salt is a novel in verse set during a time when the Native Americans and the colonists are headed toward war. Despite tensions, two boys become friends. The Thing About Georgie is a contemporary story about a kid who has troubles at home (because there’s a new baby on the way) and troubles at school (because of friends & an upcoming school play). Oh, and Georgie is a boy with dwarfism. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a story full of stories, because Minli loves the tales her father tell...

Will you come back?

Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ

#amreading Whimsically

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle is a quirky story that sends Bicycle and a bike with personality on a cross-country road trip. She makes many friends along the way. Un Lun Dun is a fantasy that works very hard to contradict the usual tropes in fantasies with a “chosen one.” Lots of whimsy as Zanna navigates through a world populated by London’s lost and broken things. In Dreamwood, Lucy runs away from boarding school in order to find her father, who’s gone missing. This one’s kind o...

If-Then Reads

One good book can lead to another! Here are two books that do the natural disaster thing. One young lady faces a devastating earthquake (and its aftermath), and the other chases her fascination for storms.

What are you reading?

Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ

#amreading Communities

Three Times Lucky is the first of the Mo & Dale Mysteries, set in the small town of Tupelo Landing. It’s smart and funny. I’m looking forward to picking up the rest of the series. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street is a neighborhood story. The Vanderbeekers are a big family (five kids), who might lose their home because their grouchy landlord won’t renew their lease. Dragon Slippers reminded me a lot of Dealing with Dragons. Creel is sacrificed to a dragon in the hopes that she’ll be married ...

Is it Christmas already?

Elza and I love games almost as much as we love reading middle grade books. You’ll find more of these over on Middle Grade Carousel and posting throughout the day on our Twitter account. Follow us and play along! ~CJ

#amreading Precariously

Enter the Core wraps up the Max Tilt trilogy. Still following in the footsteps of their ancestor Jules Verne, Max & Co. seek the truth behind Journey to the Center of the Earth. Action-packed adventure with literary tie-ins. Beastkeeper was an odd one. Things are changing and Sarah doesn’t like any of it. Her mother runs away, and her father is getting stranger (and scarier) by the day. When he shuffles her off to her grandmother’s house (a dilapidated tower in the middle of nowhere), it bec...